Wednesday, 3 February 2010

In her report on the SWIFT agreement regarding the exchange of banking data between the USA and the EU, European Parliament rapporteur Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert has recommended to the EP to reject the SWIFT agreement in the vote tomorrow.

After long explanations on the historical backgrounds, legal concerns, privacy and data protection questions, as well as inter-institutional considerations, she concludes under "6. Recommendation FMDA and way forward":

"Based on the above-mentioned, your rapporteur would recommend Parliament to withhold its consent."

This report by the rapporteur is also a clear statement on that the fight against terror may not disproportionately limit our rights - and my impression over the last years was clearly that public authorities have been giving way to much weight to the first!

The arguments speak in her favour, and I thus hope that the European Parliament will reject the SWIFT deal tomorrow.